It’s hard to resist the urge to talk to your dog in what researchers call “dog-directed speech.” Hundred-directed speech is similar to “infant-directed speech”. We exaggerate our utterance and raise the pitch of our voices; researchers believe it helps babies learn to speak.
Children’s conversations with dogs generally result in positive reactions from them, it can lead to reassurance and positive reinforcement.
Dog-Directed Speech, or Companion Animal-Directed Speech more generally, is the process of using a voice and hyper-articulating words, also known as baby talking or using infant-directed speech, with your pet.
Although it may seem like unreasonable behavior, there are actually some scientifically remarkable properties of Pet-Directed Speech.
Although it may seem at first that pet and infant-directed speech are different, they are almost identical in pitch and intonation.
Some researchers have suggested that there may be a link between the two; essentially that the two are a comprehensive type of speech behavior associated with speaking to a creature that cannot talk back.
Think of it this way, when we use infant-directed speech, we use a similar intonation and hyper-pronunciation; researchers believe this helps babies learn to speak.
Although dogs don’t learn to speak English, they learn many of the words you say.
If you’ve ever had to spell the word “walk” to prevent an overexcited puppy from getting his hopes up, you’ll know that dogs learn a surprising amount of human speech and can understand and apply meanings to the words we speak to them.
With their ability to learn and apply meaning to words in mind, it makes more sense that we naturally gravitate to a slow, exaggerated voice when using babies.
Dogs will better understand the words we say to them if we say it to them because they are cute and can’t talk, like babies!
Do dogs care about dog-directed speech?
While it may seem like using dog-directed speech is just a scientific quirk with no significant effect, studies show that dogs care much more about dog-directed speech than first thought.
For example, Companion Animal-Directed Speech has been tested with dogs, cats and even horses.
All animals tested showed positive responses to pet-directed speech compared to animals spoken to using adult-directed speech.
To test the animals’ reactions to pet-directed speech, the researchers used two different “models” that played recordings of their voices, with one model using adult-directed speech and one using pet-directed speech.
Recordings of their voices were used to eliminate the possibility of any differences in intonation, timbre or tempo that would occur in live speech.
Researchers found that dogs spent more time looking at the speaker using Companion Animal-Directed Speech and spent more time playing with them after the recordings ended.
Image credit: Linas T, Shutterstock
It is of course logical that a dog can distinguish which words in our language are most important to him, such as walks and treats.
In the second experiment, the dogs were played recordings of human voices.
Intonation and topic were incongruent: the pet-directed speech was about topics related to “adult” topics in the human world, while the adult-directed speech recording was about dog-related topics.
So dog-directed speech and dog-related topics are required for the dog to pay attention to it.
In other words, dogs know when they are spoken to, and not just by the name you call them.
Dogs understand when you talk about topics they know relate to them and when you combine that with pet-oriented speech, dogs pay very close attention.
It’s not entirely clear where the habit of pet-directed speech comes from or why it positively affects dogs.
It may be that puppies are born with an innate preference for loud noises, or they may learn to associate the behavior with positive outcomes because it usually precedes things that dogs like, such as walks or treats.
Previous studies have also shown that although pet-directed speech and infant-directed speech are similar, they have differences.
For example, when using infant-directed speech, the speakers will exaggerate vowel sounds deeply, often some of the more complex sounds for infants to learn.
This is probably because we subconsciously know that our dogs do not learn to speak from us, and that they do not need to hear the prime and correct pronunciation.
So, rather than being a dumb habit with no meaning, it seems that we intentionally and subconsciously adjust our speech based on the listener’s potential language learning ability.
If the listener can learn our language, we adapt to help them learn to speak it better.
If they can’t, we adapt to help them learn to understand it better.
Does Baby Talk help with dog training?
Additionally, Companion Animal-Directed Speech showed positive effects on attention and socialization in dogs, cats and horses.
So, at the very least, it makes your dog pay more attention to what you say during training sessions.
Image credit: Monika Wisniewska, Shutterstock
So don’t stop talking to your dog!
When you do, it helps them learn to understand our language and its mysteries better.
Baby talk also helps your dog while learning to interact with other creatures, providing them with reassurance and positive reinforcement that helps them become better behaved citizens.
Talk to dogs: Speech in companion animals in a stress test
Featured image credit: VK Studio, Shutterstock